Suggestions for the thief class: Revisiting Skills in Guild Wars 1 Assassin w/ some useful changes

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shadow_Shroud
Target foe cannot be the target of enchantments.
 - given in base form of Specter while in shroud & siphoning an enemy target, applies a small debilitation that acts like a single target ANTI enchantment application. Any enchantments targeting/WERE to go on the target fail until the duration.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Critical_Agility
 You attack 33% faster and gain +15...25 armor. Renewal: every time you land a critical hit. 
- - traited in critical strikes traitline, adds toughness/vitality and will refresh. give it 4s of quickness(base) with 2s CD to require stats to be built in in order to acquire quickness on self

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Critical_Defenses
You have a 75% chance to block. Renewal: every time you land a critical hit.
- traited in critical strikes traitline - this can be played instead of Critical Agility, only 1 can be taken, Critical Defenses/Agility. Instead this would apply Aegis on Renewal (1s) ICD

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Expose_Defenses
Target foe cannot block your attacks.
traited in Deadly Arts traitline - this instead gives your attacks unblockables for a small duration / amount of attacks

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shadow_Form
-Enemy spells cannot target you. Gain 5 damage reduction for each Assassin enchantment on you. You cannot deal more than 5...21...25 damage with a single skill or attack.
Specter based - Traited in grandmaster as a choice between other grandmasters of shroud buffs  -  Instead this is an increase in shroud damage however you cannot DEAL more than an amount of % based damage strike damage / ALL damage sources - Only works within Shroud form. Pulse AoE Blind every second you are in shroud form

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shroud_of_Distress
You have 3...7...8 health regeneration and a 75% chance to block. No effect unless your Health is below 50%.
-Shadow Arts trait, This is a selectable trait, Regeneration boon is constantly applied every second and at 50% or below 25% regeneration increases in effectiveness by 2% as far as healing per regen tick. at 50% or below you apply aegis every 3s.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Scorpion_Wire
Scorpion wire already exists however is unreliable, Instead it triggers on the next foe you steal to trigger something similar to Magebane Tether on warrior. After target gets to 1201 range they get pulled to you (stability taken into account) UNBLOCKABLE. Also pulses Reveal for the 6s duration (lasts 12 seconds)

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Smoke_Powder_Defense
The next time you are struck, you take half damage and inflict Blindness condition (2...5...6 seconds) on adjacent foes.
-this trait did exist at one point when struck below a health thresh hold, this needs to be placed back within shadow arts

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Unseen_Fury

Stance. Inflicts Blindness condition on adjacent foes (3...9...10). You cannot be blocked by Blinded foes for 10...26...30 seconds.

-This would be a nice combo for dealing with heavy boonsupport/non aegis blocks as well, this would be a trait line in shadow arts. Ignores Blind maybe?

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Way_of_the_Master

While holding a non-dagger weapon, you have +3...27...33% chance to land a critical hit.
-This will be critical strikes line. Each weapon will have an increased effect on top of additional critical hit chance, (set to be determined) Swords will combine Swindlers equilibrium trait in this trait, Pistols will pierce and bounce to nearby targets (old ricochet trait), Staves will gain an additional target on cleaveable targets, shortbows initiative costs will be reduced by 2 (6 initiative minimum required, Rifle criticals will trigger the next attack to be unblockable(2s cooldown)

THESE SUGGESTIONS WOULD BE MAINLY SIMILAR TO CHOOSING GRANDMASTER SELECTABLE TRAITS FOR DAREDEVIL BASED ON DODGE TYPE TO BETTER CATER TO PLAYSTYLES/BUILDS.

 

DISCUSS!

 

 

[Kodama.6453]

There is some insanely broken stuff among these....

8 hours ago, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Critical_Agility
 You attack 33% faster and gain +15...25 armor. Renewal: every time you land a critical hit. 
- - traited in critical strikes traitline, adds toughness/vitality and will refresh. give it 4s of quickness(base) with 2s CD to require stats to be built in in order to acquire quickness on self

So basically if you run berserker equip, with that trait you wll keep up permanent quickness on yourself with no boon duration investment.

We had this problem several times already and every time anet tries to fix it. The new raid meta would become 1 alacheal and 4 thieves running this trait to eleminate the need for a quickness support. Anet had to fix bladesworn because stacking them enabled perma quickness without boon duration investment. They had to nerf jade dynamo for the same reason. Don't repeat these mistakes.

And then it also provides toughness and/or vitality for shits and giggles.

8 hours ago, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Critical_Defenses
You have a 75% chance to block. Renewal: every time you land a critical hit.
- traited in critical strikes traitline - this can be played instead of Critical Agility, only 1 can be taken, Critical Defenses/Agility. Instead this would apply Aegis on Renewal (1s) ICD

Aegis application with 1s ICD on an easily achieved trigger (critical hit). What could possibly go wrong?

9 hours ago, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shadow_Form
-Enemy spells cannot target you. Gain 5 damage reduction for each Assassin enchantment on you. You cannot deal more than 5...21...25 damage with a single skill or attack.
Specter based - Traited in grandmaster as a choice between other grandmasters of shroud buffs  -  Instead this is an increase in shroud damage however you cannot DEAL more than an amount of % based damage strike damage / ALL damage sources - Only works within Shroud form. Pulse AoE Blind every second you are in shroud form

Pulsing blind in shroud, which is a supportive kit as well as an offensive one. Basically making the healer of the party untouchable....

Also I don't quite understand your paragraph about damage. Does it mean the damage you deal while in shroud is decreased? It's a downside, sure, but if you play a healer role then it hardly matters.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

4 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

There is some insanely broken stuff among these....

So basically if you run berserker equip, with that trait you wll keep up permanent quickness on yourself with no boon duration investment.

We had this problem several times already and every time anet tries to fix it. The new raid meta would become 1 alacheal and 4 thieves running this trait to eleminate the need for a quickness support. Anet had to fix bladesworn because stacking them enabled perma quickness without boon duration investment. They had to nerf jade dynamo for the same reason. Don't repeat these mistakes.

And then it also provides toughness and/or vitality for shits and giggles.

Aegis application with 1s ICD on an easily achieved trigger (critical hit). What could possibly go wrong?

Pulsing blind in shroud, which is a supportive kit as well as an offensive one. Basically making the healer of the party untouchable....

Also I don't quite understand your paragraph about damage. Does it mean the damage you deal while in shroud is decreased? It's a downside, sure, but if you play a healer role then it hardly matters.

i see this now, what about a 5s cooldown on aegis, what would u suggest? im really just gunning for thematic changes in grandmasters and selectable traits to setup a build, not all over the place jigsaw

[Doggie.3184]

Don't forget Signet of Deadly Corruption... coulda been our Elite Signet~ I loved loading multiple different condi onto someone in GW1 and then pressing the Signet which acted like a detonator to explode them dead instantly.

Also god kitten do I miss the original Death Blossom without the forward leap. Allow WASD movement while spinning plz~ that's how it should have evolved.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

 

12 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

There is some insanely broken stuff among these....

So basically if you run berserker equip, with that trait you wll keep up permanent quickness on yourself with no boon duration investment.

We had this problem several times already and every time anet tries to fix it. The new raid meta would become 1 alacheal and 4 thieves running this trait to eleminate the need for a quickness support. Anet had to fix bladesworn because stacking them enabled perma quickness without boon duration investment. They had to nerf jade dynamo for the same reason. Don't repeat these mistakes.

And then it also provides toughness and/or vitality for shits and giggles.

Aegis application with 1s ICD on an easily achieved trigger (critical hit). What could possibly go wrong?

Pulsing blind in shroud, which is a supportive kit as well as an offensive one. Basically making the healer of the party untouchable....

Also I don't quite understand your paragraph about damage. Does it mean the damage you deal while in shroud is decreased? It's a downside, sure, but if you play a healer role then it hardly matters.

Some key differences between this game and guild wars 1, was that enchantments were strippable, and were often stripped. This is why these mechanics seem overpowered as guild wars 2 mechanics…because most buffs in gw2 can’t be removed.

 

guild wars 1 is vastly superior in terms of balance and design… nearly every skill had many counters and logical trade offs and as you can see from some of their descriptions, those tradeoffs were also self-imposed on the skills, resulting in thoughtful play of the skill.  In fact showing guild wars 1 skills reveals all the flaws with guild wars 2 in its design : skills lack scale-invariant and well designed tradeoffs.

 

With that said, Shadowform and it’s corresponding meta in that game was a mistake and it would also be a mistake to bring it into this game.

 

It turned out, the ability to be immune to all damage and simultaneously be able to do damage was not a good idea at all whatsoever.

 

It’s argued that this game design philosophy at launch…simply took shadowforms mechanics and copy pasted it onto every class and on tons of skills… this is why we have things like Distortion and Bounding Dodger and many other imbalanced mechanics and skills (people find ways to chain uncounterable invulnerability skills together to be immune to damage while simultaneously  doing damage to an opponent.)

 

Guild Wars 1 is a great way to analyze what is so wrong with Guild Wars 2

Edited February 21, 2023 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684